About Me

I believed that stuff we were taught in high school back in the days before "Social Studies" supplanted history, geography and civics.
I really don't want to talk only about political things. I really want merely to be left alone to follow my own way.

What the brilliant Senator Waters meant to say was Nationalize.And what does that really entail? How do you nationalize an industry? In the case of Venezuela, you merely round everyone up, put them on an airplane and make it take off. Where they landed was their problem.

But with nationalizing a company here it is somewhat different, and not so easy.

One, there's that pesky Constitution getting in the way, but that doesn't bother Liberals too terribly much.But more difficult, what exactly do you nationalize; and from who (or is that whom??)It might actually have been easier if they had not made the Sherman Antitrust Act first and broken everything up into little pieces. The raw petroleum is purchased from various countries, companies and even individuals all over the world. The "Big Oil" companies buy it from these guys at market cost.

Then maybe we should steal it from the end vendor. They are the ones that actually charge us so much and don't even check our tire pressure or give us free glasses with fill-up anymore. Besides, their name is Patel, and they aren't even Americans. But they only have two thousand gallons and if you take it they won't buy any more for you to take.

Then there's the companies themselves. What do they actually do? They buy petroleum and mark its price up and sell it. That and they have a bunch of ugly, smelly refineries all over the place. We take those away form the companies and ... and ... and? What force the employees to continue on - like slaves? Or like government employees, get paid to put in eight? Why am I suddenly thinking of Atlas Shrugged? Wyatt's Oil anyone?

Then how about the stockholders? They are rich teachers? Teachers? Well, yes the Teacher's Retirement System is a big owner of shares. In fact, retirement plans are the largers group of stockholders in most companies and industries. But the COO of the Teacher's Retirement Plan assured me the Friday that they are diversified into Petro China and European Companies as well, just in case our leeches, oops I mean politicians, can't control their greed.

So does the Government steal the oil from these people who own the land the oil sits under. There is a precedent. Break the centuries old tradition of ownership of land as private property. They already want that with property tax and condemnation. Or do they steal it from the retailer, a one-time shot? Or from the processor who provides a dangerous and technical service? Or do they steal it from my retirement? Any way she does it, it will not be better; it will be grandstanding, self-serving theft; and Mr. Tillerson will be correct, we will long for the days of $5 a gallon gas.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Our beloved Congress-Critters are at it again. They are at Stage 4 - Search for the Guilty - in the search for the reason for the rise in the price of gasoline. The have demanded the heads of the various oil companies come and stand before the Congressional Kangaroo court. There is a justice Department if there is a real crime committed. Oh, no, this is Congressional theatrics at its best or worst.There is no chance that they can find the most of the real reasons. They have already determined their idea of the cause and are trying to find information to justify their conclusion that Capitalism is the cause. They will not acknowledge that the dollar has tanked in the international currency market (many reasons -- many of which track back directly to themselves). They will not recognize that the percentage of gross that is profit to the oil companies has remained constant -- it is merely that same percentage of a larger pie.They will not acknowledge that they have made three times the profit that the oil companies do from each gallon of gas. They will not acknowledge that their environmental regulations (as much at the state level as the Federal) have contributed greatly to artificial scarcity.But for all this, somehow I suspect I can live a lot longer without the phlegmatic Chuck Schumer and his show trials than I can without R. W. Tillerson and his management of Exxon-Mobil.

From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs. The first thing you learn about that political system known as Communist. This is the ideal utopian system where all men are truly equal. At least that's the bullshit they spout.Then why is it that every single People's Republic goes straight to a President for life (and beyond)and that President for Life bequeaths his position to a relative? Kim Jong-il of North Korea has taken the place of his father Kim Il-sung, who is not only President for Life, but "President forever". And now, Fidel Castro has passed on his Presidency of 50 years to his brother Raoul. You will never find a leftist who will see the inconsistency of this procedure.We are about to elect the most openly leftist President yet. He promises change un-enumerated. Will he be our "President for Life"?

There is a reason that most Presidents have been ex-Governors and Mayors and not Senators. All three of these candidates are demonstrating the reason why. The President is the head of the "Executive" branch of our government, not the Legislative; any yet all three of these horrible candidates are proposing legislation that they would institute once they were chief executive. They are promising this program and that program and how they will nationalize this industry and that. It is all in the name of "common good" mind you; but it is not what our founding fathers envisioned. But it doesn't really start with these candidates. For nearly 100 years now, Congress has been derelict in their duty. Instead of the crafting the minimum sensible laws for us to operate under, they have delegated sweeping powers to an ever-increasing number of government sub-bureaucracies like the EPA who can make rules and abridge rights on a whim with no real check or balance. They mean well they say, and if we complain, we must be against whatever noble cause they claim to stand for -- in the cited case, if you object to an edict of the EPA you must be against clean air. It is the perfect Catch 22. If you think that the Department of Education undermines education, you must be against children. To these unelected sub-employees, results are never as important as process. Which is why making the rules should never be the province of the Executive Branch, but belongs instead to our House of Representatives who is accountable to us every other year. But our remaining candidates all believe that not only is this as it should be, they believe it grants them supernumary powers to make laws as they believe necessary to instill their own design of what they would like our country to be. And this my friends scares me. Not only does our population exhibit an abysmal ignorance on our Constitutional system, but every single one of the remaining viable candidates intends to take advantage of that ignorance.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Not even Rush Limbaugh picked up on it. Some years ago, USA Today published a map which showed the split in the Republican and Democratic states. The urban heavy states had a majority of Liberal Democrats and were colored blue. The rural Republican states were colored red. I have two problems with the map and its consequences.First why those colors and not the reverse? Could it really have just been a coincidence? Why were the Liberal wins not colored the RED that they should have been? Am I the only one who thinks that our Liberal Media establishment deliberately hid the red connection to the liberal Democratic party?

And second, why have we never seen the breakdown county-by-county? That would show just how this balance really is not just red-state blue-state. The imbalance really is how outweighed the rural part of our country is by the inner cities of the country. I have heard many ignorant speakers call for eliminating the Electoral College. If you saw county-by-county just how bad the imbalance is, you would understand just how important the Electoral college really is. So why won't the news outlets show us?

There can be no doubt that our news media really is biased in favor of a system that would eliminate the freedom that lets them rail against their own country.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

I'm seeing red. For years we have heard the Social Security Trust Fund doesn't have enough income to cover the old age of the "baby boomers". I might manage to receive a year or two of it, but those born in 1954 or 55 will be lucky to get any.So why am I so mad? My neighbor over the back fence just proudly told me that she finally qualified to receive Social Security payments. She claims she is too disabled to work, because she is handicapped. Her problem? She is too fat to work, (about 300 lbs or so) and so her knees hurt. So for the rest of her life you must support her. Frankly, a little walking might get rid of some of that fat. In the school system where I work, I am starting to see more and more of that -- women getting too fat to walk without assistance and trying to retire early. Parking in the handicapped spaces so they can save a car length or three when coming in. Real handicapped people ought to be incensed. That is not a handicap, it is a lifestyle choice.My neighbor? I'm glad you asked, since you will be supporting her for the rest of her life. She's 27.

As I look about my world at home, in a county that went from crowded to triple that population in 20 years, I forget that there is still a world like this out there. Not all our country is megalopolis. But the arrogance of our Federal Government know no bounds. The same well meaning but silly and crippling laws apply here as in Atlanta. You pull in to a juke joint across the gravel lot and there are the requisite number of unused handicapped spaces. (I did not check to see if the outhouse was handicap accessible.)

I try to imagine these people being forced to give up their pickup trucks and forced into Prius (priuses? Prii?) and driving silly city cars because the people in New York, Washington, and San Francisco don't even know what the rest of the country is like. We ain't inside the beltway kids.

I drove through Laramie, Wyoming and there was an old hound lazily wandering his neighborhood and my mind raced to the PETA do-gooders and lawyers that would have made a scandal of it in my neighboorhood.

The United States is a big and varied place. One size fits all should apply as little as possible.